SKYWALKER,'
by IBG
Summary: An apprenticeship ends


I do not own any of this....

'SKYWALKER,'

It is built into the nature of apprenticeships that they end. Students complete their training and successfully graduate to the next level, or they are deemed unworthy and dismissed.....

Weeks ago the hologram flickered before me and an agent appeared, bowed as he should be.

'Your Majesty,' He waited.

I waited too. Until I could tell that he was uncomfortable, and I took what enjoyment I could from his discomfort and anxiety for a brief time, but then I magnanimously announced that he could begin. I was actually looking forward to hearing what he had to say. (I sincerely doubted that his unit would have dared contacted me without significant progress to report.)

'We have those identities, Your Majesty. Han Solo is the group's de facto leader. Corellian, dishonorably discharged from the navy some years back, took up smuggling, and then took up with the Rebellion. His co-pilot's a Wookie they call Chewbacca. Solo's got bad debts, so we could get him out of there with the right price. But the kill shot wasn't fired from Solo's ship. A rookie in an X-wing made the shot… kid named Skywalker… Luke Skywalker. He's fresh-off-the-farm from Tatooine… no family or ties of any kind. They've got him commanding Rogue Squadron now….'

Of course my operative prattled on. Fortunately for him my scarred visage was unable to portray the shock I felt, or the speed of my recovery. In reality it took me few seconds to remember he was still there. I raised my hand. He stopped. His fear and confusion whet my force's appetite, but could provide no more satisfaction than awakening hunger.

'You have done well,' I intoned. This elicited surprise. 'Carry on your investigations. I look forward to your next report.'

The figure bowed hastily. 'Thank you, Your Majesty!'

I could hear, see and feel his cloying, pitiful sycophancy. It is beneath me, but I draw on the feelings anyway, giving myself another moment to enjoy this tiny thing among the vast rewards of my hard-won station…. A simple…. pleasure, if you will.

There is, as I suspected, a more important matter at hand.

A rookie pilot had out-flown my apprentice long enough to shoot down the Death Star. No mean feat. That man had not been out-flown since he was a Jedi Padawan.

The pilot's name was…. telling. Luke Skywalker.

Padme Amidala had been the perfect vessel for force-spawn after all. She concealed a second child within her womb.

I miscalculated when I let his twin slip from me.

Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan debuted at my Court when she was 17, but not to join the political marriage market that thrives here. No. She came to Coruscant as Senator for Alderaan, having succeeded in open nomination without Bail Organa's permission or knowledge.

I was mildly amused then, to think her as rebellious as her Sire was at that age. Yes. I held no delusions as to exactly who was curtseying low before my Throne. I may be old and disfigured but I am neither foolish nor blind. I was disappointed (but unsurprised) to sense her barely strong enough for any kind of force training, certainly unworthy of being a Sith.

I morosely added 'Dynasty Stud' to my mental list of ways in which Vader had failed me. I did not doubt the girl's paternity, but it seemed my apprentice avariciously kept his midichlorians to himself when he mated with her mother. Vader was standing just behind my throne at the time, so I scanned his reaction to the child…. And found him too deeply engrossed in his private hell of mourning to pay her adequate attention. She looked enough like her mother to trigger memories, and enough like her father to block recognition….

I was irritated. It was a convenient weakness for my exploitation, but I had hoped Vader would outgrow running from his emotional ghosts the way six-year-olds flee mythical monsters in their sleeping quarters….

I decided his distraction was a good sign.

Vader was searching for an apprentice to train in secret. His injuries made his need acute. Overthrowing me on his own was not an option if he wanted to survive my death. If the Organa girl had even modest claim to her birth-father's power that Cyborg would have been alert and plotting, recognition or no. At the time I settled to watch the rest of the party, discounting her as a threat. She could argue to her pretty, passionate little heart's content in the senate. She would be eliminated naturally when the rebellion's end came.

I was mistaken.

Two years after her debut the Tantive IV was tracked by Vader and Princess Organa was caught in treason. At my command she was interrogated aboard the death star, so Tarkin could provide distraction for Vader as well as keep an eye on the proceedings. When Tarkin updated me I was concerned. Organa withstood Vader's interrogation. Instead of killing her (as he normally would anyone who dared thus defy him) Vader had dazedly mumbled something about her potentially being of use.

With that I gave the order on Alderaan and its Princess. Leia Amidala Skywalker had to be eliminated before Vader spent any more time with her, and Alderaan could not be allowed to continue support of the rebel alliance.

Alderaan disintegrated into space-dust as planned, but the Princess escaped and my Death Star exploded.

Vader went missing in action briefly, but sustained minimal physical damage. I punished his failure appropriately then set him the task of tracking the Rebels. I anticipated his rage at his humiliated existence would be displaced to the destruction of the upstart rebels, as it had been to the Jedi years before.

Instead Vader became inexplicably insane within a year of our setback. He had openly disapproved of the Death Star, so I knew he was secretly pleased at its destruction. Kenobi was dead. The rebellion was near elimination. Our moment of victory was upon us.

My apprentice chose that year to adopt secretive, erratic behavior reminiscent of his youth. Had he recognized the Princess at the last? No. He had learned that pilot's name months ago and he withheld it from me. What did Vader hope to achieve with this omission?

I set him a test. A high level official on Jazbina was looking to defect. That extraction was certain to be assigned to the rebellion's best… Rogue Squadron. I let Vader counter, to reveal his intentions.

Now he kneels before me upon his return, and speaks the word Master, but there are no feelings for me to savour. Instead he offers me factual minutia as a veneer for the thick, blank shields obscuring his mind.

'The rebel escaped,' he says.

He omits that he released his son to the Jazbinans instead of risking the boy bodily harm. I cannot feel Vader, but I know that he is simultaneously plotting and slipping towards the light. I am not Obi-Wan Kenobi, to ignore the signs of an apprentice subverted by his attachment.

My enemy seeks to foil me from a vanquished position, as she always has. The twins have Anakin's power, but it is their Mother's essence that ensured their energy would emanate beneath my ability to detect it. They have set about the impossibilities in her stead, raising rebellion against my Empire, reviving the Jedi, and now, redeeming a Sith. Is the next item on their agenda orchestrating my death?

It is of no consequence. I hold the final advantage. I understand Vader better than his loved-ones do. He will be of use to me.

My next word will shatter our twenty-year alliance and open the race to divide and destroy. I say silent farewell to my failed servant, and wait in the pregnant pause for him to further incriminate himself. It does not take long.

'Master?' he queries, undone by his fear and my lack of response to his lies.

'Skywalker,' I reply.


End file.
